sist on other men's labour, on the labour of
their tenants, whom, to raise their revenues, they pare to the quick.
This indeed is the only instance of their frugality, for in all other
things they are prodigal, even to the beggaring of themselves: but
besides this, they carry about with them a great number of idle fellows,
who never learned any art by which they may gain their living; and
these, as soon as either their lord dies, or they themselves fall sick,
are turned out of doors; for your lords are readier to feed idle people,
than to take care of the sick; and often the heir is not able to keep
together so great a family as his predecessor did. Now when the stomachs
of those that are thus turned out of doors, grow keen, they rob no less
keenly; and what else can they do? for when, by wandering about, they
have worn out both their health and their clothes, and are tattered, and
look ghastly, men of quality will not entertain them, and poor men dare
not do it; knowing that one who has been bred up in idleness and
pleasure, and who was used to walk about with his sword and buckler,
despising all the neighbourhood with an insolent scorn, as far below
him, is not fit for the spade and mattock: nor will he serve a poor man
for so small a hire, and in so low a diet as he can afford to give him.'
To this he answered, 'This sort of men ought to be particularly
cherished, for in them consists the force of the armies for which we
have occasion; since their birth inspires them with a nobler sense of
honour, than is to be found among tradesmen or ploughmen.'--'You may as
well say,' replied I, 'that you must cherish thieves on the account of
wars, for you will never want the one, as long as you have the other;
and as robbers prove sometimes gallant soldiers, so soldiers often prove
brave robbers; so near an alliance there is between those two sorts of
life. But this bad custom, so common among you, of keeping many
servants, is not peculiar to this nation. In France there is yet a more
pestiferous sort of people, for the whole country is full of soldiers,
still kept up in time of peace; if such a state of a nation can be
called a peace: and these are kept in pay upon the same account that you
plead for those idle retainers about noblemen; this being a maxim of
those pretended statesmen that it is necessary for the public safety, to
have a good body of veteran soldiers ever in readiness. They think raw
men are not to be depended on,